Agreement with Mayor's Office and Public Utilities Commission includes spending $9 million over two years - an 18-fold increase - on streetlight capital needs and formulation of global assessment of deteriorated streetlight system's capital needs

San Francisco, CA - Today, Supervisor Scott Wiener announced an agreement with the Mayor's Office and the Public Utilities Commission to secure $9 million for capital renovations to San Francisco's streetlights over the next two fiscal years. In recent years, the PUC has been spending approximately $250,000 a year on its nearly 25,000 streetlights. In addition, Supervisor Wiener, the Mayor's Office, and the PUC agreed that between now and April, the City will conduct a global assessment of the capital needs of San Francisco's streetlights, including a long-term plan to pay for these needs. This assessment will then be amended into San Francisco's Capital Plan, so that streetlights are part of San Francisco's ongoing Capital Planning process.

"For too many years, City Hall has allowed our streetlights to deteriorate and accumulate huge deferred maintenance," said Supervisor Wiener. "As a result, streetlights frequently fail, which undermines public safety and neighborhood quality of light. We need to refocus on fixing these lights and making them more reliable. Today's agreement is both a down payment on our streetlights' capital needs and a path forward in assessing and addressing the system's overall needs."

Last week at the Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Wiener moved to amend the Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond - a bond focused on public safety infrastructure needs - to include $25 million to address the capital needs of streetlights. At Supervisor Wiener's request, the Board then delayed consideration of the bond by one week to allow negotiation for a funding agreement. With this agreement, Supervisor Wiener will support the original version of the bond without the additional funding for streetlights.